Rod Meredith Says To Be Wary of Non-Ordained Self-Appointed Wannabe's Who Have No Experience

The Living Church of God has an article up accompanying a photo of the current Council of Elders.  It also contains a letter from the Presiding Evangelist (i.e. ordained) Roderick C Meredith.  In the article he talks about the on the current Council of Elders and the qualities they bring to it.

 
Here are a few highlights.


Rod Meredith talks about the current men on the council and how they all get along so fabulously unlike the grumbling cry babies that jumped ship to Dave Packs cult or started their own splinter group.

The atmosphere of the Council is, consistently, extremely warm, loving and dedicated. Council members have commented that they can virtually “feel” the love and warmth among the members of the Council, and their dedication to the Work of God.

I can just feel the sunshine and lollipops right now!  I am so warm and fuzzy that I need some pink cotton candy right now!


No other Church of God on earth, including that non-ordained self appointed prophet, has as many dedicated and loyal men who trained at the feet of Herbert Armstrong than LCG has. Even the church raiding apostle in Wadsworth doesn't have as many loyal men in it.  Meredith also wants the membership to know that he has no "yes men" on the Council.  Not a single man on the Council ever expresses a dissenting voice in any decisions. They are united as one, unlike the non-ordained self-appointed upstart, who brought dissension and division into the Body of Christ.

The main purpose of the Council of Elders is to advise the Presiding Evangelist on doctrines, practices and important programs of the Church and Work of God. We have much hearty discussion on all of these issues. And we certainly do not encourage “yes men” in any way. Although we do have open and frank discussions, the underlying dedication and obvious guidance of God’s Spirit gives us an unusual unity of mind—for which we are very thankful. We want to fulfill the inspired comments of the Apostle Paul about God’s purpose for the entire ministry: “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–15).

Meredith wants the membership to know that the LCG is far better equipped for the ministry of God than Dave Pack or the non-ordained self-appointed prophet's mini group.  LCG's men are men of distinction who trained with or worked with Herbert Armstrong, unlike the non-ordained self-appointed prophet Thiel.  LCG's men have thousands of hours of experience of sitting at the feet of Herbert Armstrong and learning from him while the non-ordained self-appointed prophet never even attended God's College!

Unlike the non-ordained prophet who is interpreting things along his own line of mythology, the LCG is not changing anything that HWA instituted, despite the warnings of the non-ordained self-appointed critic/prophet Thiel.

In the Living Church of God, we are doing all we can to strengthen our brethren, and help them understand “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Frankly, we are far better equipped to do this because most of the older ministers and those who worked directly with Mr. Herbert Armstrong came with us near the beginning of this Work! Men like Messrs. Dibar Apartian, Raymond McNair, Syd Hegvold, Carl McNair, Richard Ames—and others—were older, experienced ministers who worked with Mr. Armstrong or, as in Mr. Ames’ case, were even placed on the World Tomorrow telecast directly by Mr. Armstrong. We have had, collectively, thousands of hours of experience in meetings with Mr. Armstrong and the other leaders in God’s Work over a period of decades. We knew Mr. Armstrong, and we knew what he wanted for the Work. We deeply respect what Christ did through Mr. Armstrong and do not in any way intend to change—and will not change—any of the basic truths Christ revealed through him, such as the Sabbath, Holy Days, etc. Sadly, there are some former Worldwide members and ministers who, in order to advance their own particular agendas, have tried to portray a “different” Mr. Armstrong than the real one. We are grateful to have had a Council that has included a significant number of men who directly knew better than these self-appointed critics!

Then Meredith gets to the meat of his article. It is he, and only he, who is qualified to be leading such a ministry.  Unlike the non-ordained and self-appointed prophet Thiel, he never appointed himself to a higher office.  

No one has more experience in teaching Bible classes as he has.  Something that the non-ordained prophet has never accomplished.  

Meredith wants Thiel and others to know that he is the ONLY ONE in the entire COG that had been a Deputy Chancellor of all three colleges, a second Vice President of the WCG and Ambassador College for many years.  He has written hundreds and hundreds of articles over the years, unlike the non-ordained Thiel.  Because Jesus Christ has used him over  the decades he as the ability to bring stability to the church, instead of running to-and-fro like the non-ordained prophet is doing. 

 

Then best of all, the ORDAINED leader of the LCG wants the non-ordained prophet of the Continuing Ed Church of God  to remember that he is NOT ordained.  Since Meredith is ordained he carries on a mantle that the non-ordained prophet cannot carry.  In other words, the non-ordained self-appointed prophet is an impotent little man compared to this mighty, masculine, ordained man.

God’s inspired word tells us: “Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:7–8). Brethren, I have never tried to “appoint myself” as an apostle or to any other high office. But many of you realize that even throughout the extended Church of God fellowships around the world—there is no one who has had the depth of experience I have had as one who has spoken the word of God to you. In spite of my human weaknesses, Christ has used me to teach more Bible classes than any other human being in this age. I am the only one who has been Deputy Chancellor of all three colleges, and was Second Vice President of the Worldwide Church of God and Ambassador College for many years. I have written literally hundreds of articles and conducted hundreds of evangelistic campaigns all over the world. The living Christ has used me as a human instrument to do these things. Although I seldom mention this in such detail, I do want you to realize that Christ is in charge of our lives and has guided me—as He has guided all of us—in this way, so that I can bring this kind of experience of stability to the Church, which I have sincerely tried to do now for more than 20 years of the Global/Living Church of God Work. As most of you know, my entire ministry goes back more than 60 years—as I was ordained an evangelist by Mr. Armstrong on December 20, 1952.

Then in another direct slam against the non-ordained self-appointed prophet Thiel, Meredith says this:

 God’s word also tells us, “Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you” (Hebrews 13:17). Certainly, this inspired warning should give pause to any of those who are tempted to become “self-appointed critics” and constantly look for the “loose brick” as they eagerly seek to find any, any fault they can criticize.  We must not let ourselves become confused or distracted by those who try to position themselves as “superior” to the ones Christ is actually using to do His Work.

There you have it LCG members!  Do not let yourselves be confused by non-ordained self-appointed upstarts who do not have any experience!

Dennis Says: "You In Your Small Corner...And I In Mine"

You In Your Small Corner...And I In Mine

I really enjoyed the responses to the Grain of Sand article.  It is not that we can all agree on the deep things of science, quantum physics and cosmology, but it  is that many with a COG background have grown up to know that these things are there to be studied , observed and understood even if it also ends up being opinion.  It is informed opinion!  Being informed about anything besides Bible reading is not one of the COGs greatest strong points. 

As a pastor, I cringed, even back when, to hear someone say, "Well Eve...."  or "Adam said...", along with most pronouncements  from "God" when it was really an author of Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel who "said."  Church of God pastors, much less laity, know virtually nothing outside of their very small world of "God said..."  If they do, they are terribly quiet about it.  They don't know about anything such as "action at a distance," parallel universes, string theory, Brane theory, the bi-cameral mind, or the information over the last 20 years about human origins that has demolished "A Whale of a Tale" or "A Theory for the Birds."    That modern birds are most likely the descendents of the dinosaur , feathers preceded flight for other reasons than flying or that modern whales have the remnants of pelvis and hind limbs eludes them.  All quite wonderful stuff actually.  It matters little if the universe is plasma based, full of dark matter that explains the push apart of space and time or holographic in nature.  It is that one knows the possibilities in an age where excellent knowledge, and I hesitate to say this....is increased!

I like the idea of parallel universes that other flat universes like our own may be just out of reach.  I like the idea that perhaps when they touch at times, they produce a new universe in the resulting explosion and big bang as we might say.  Can I prove it.  Hell no!  Physicists can't and I'm no physicist. 

But the possibility exists which is all that matters.  The math seems to work until it doesn't. 

The point is that the COGs have yet to put aside childish things which include everything from real human origins versus why the story of an Adam and Eve is told, to the false perspective that all the New Testament characters loved and all believed the same one thing.  They did not and if you now where to look, within the text of the NT is the sarcasm and face punches that each deliver to the other to send the message of "follow me, not him," much as we see today.  Truly nothing new under that sun.

I have learned that discussion with differing views is great, but arguing is fruitless.  Never in the history of this blog, and most others I expect , has just the right argument been offered for this or that view where others said, "you know...you are right."  Never happened far as I remember and never will.  Each wants their own view to  be the truth which is hangover from WCG days of wanting to know  "how did you come into the truth."  It would have been better asked, "how did you come into the present truth,"  but too late now. 

No one can be in their perspectives where they are not.  I can't be where some are because either I used to be there and moved on or never want to be there in the first place because it makes no sense to me.  Group think does not work in the pursuit of real truth and individuals, not organizations produce real truth, painfully and often after ridicule and scoffing have run their courses.  Being ahead of one's time never worked out well for the theologically or scientifically curious.  Hierarchy must demolish individuality quickly or it will cease to be organized.  Oh to have a church where what you study, believe or see for yourself is encouraged and not crushed.   The crush factor in the COGs is an art form by now.

Pot shots at others is a skill and need of the insecure.  Name calling or abusive challenges mean nothing in reality.  They speak little of the one who causes them and volumes about the one that inflicts them.  No one likes the feeling of being ill informed or outright wrong.  But as I have said in the past, I have never met anyone who belonged to the false church or believed the wrong things.  It is where one is when one is there. 

I think we hold our ground out of the utter insecurity of relinquishing it.  I had it all figured out and someone tells me I don't?  The way I see science matches how I see the Bible and you dare tell me they don't match and I am kidding myself?  You say I can't believe in both Adam and Eve and Genesis and science well done when I know I absolutely can?  How dare you tell me what I can't mix and match.

For example, I have never had a good answer from a fundamentalist as to why Jesus death was the most hideous and sacrificial of all deaths ever.  When one calmly looks at the story, it seems merely an weekend inconvenience for God the Father and Jesus.  God knew he would bring him back and Jesus seemed to know he would be coming back...in a mere three days and better than ever.  That is a far cry from the kind of death and sacrifice portrayed even in the Bible.  Every sacrifice in the OT stayed dead.  They didn't just seem to die.  They actually died and have not been seen or heard from since.  Jesus, if you read the news and history, did not die the most awful death "above all men."  General Crawford captured by the Wyandot's in Ohio trumps Jesus by a long shot.  A burning tire around your neck or being buried alive after digging your own grave in Nigeria or Somalia seems a bit more awful to me.  And I bet those men and women cried out to their God to be saved and heard nothing back.  No one to date has explained to me how Jesus death was the most amazing thing and that God "gave his only begotten son," and not add on , "for a mere three days getting him back better than ever."  Everyone I ever buried is still dead.  Shouldn't a real sacrifice stay dead to be a sacrifice? 

Part of the answer is that if the doctrine of Jesus kept Jesus dead, you have no way to make a religion out of that.  You would have no way to prove that dead was different from any other dead we all experience.  You must get a god resurrected and available if you are going to have a Church.  But in fact, it makes no sense to say that Jesus died the worst and most sacrificial of deaths.  He was gone three days and back better than ever.  Even as far as being crucified is concerned, he died in a mere six hours when that kind of death that tens of thousands experienced at the hands of Romans took days and only when your body fell off the cross and was eaten by dogs were you done with it.  Ministers are so used to exaggerating and emotionalizing Jesus death as presented contradictorily in scripture habitually.  They don't think it through.  Or maybe I'm nuts.  :)

At any rate, good on all you who have expanded your thinking to include science well done. Even if proven inadequate or wrong, real science has the habit of admitting or catching mistakes or wrong theories and moving on.  Religion thinks there are no mistakes or if they find one, kill the person who brought it to their attention and bury it in double talk.  (Read The Surprising God Log for excellent examples of this kind of doublespeak.  http://thesurprisinggodblog.gci.org/  )

The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

Richard Dawkins

 denniscdiehl@AOL.com 

Dave Pack Being Mocked Over Lawsuit Regarding Domain Name

Poor Dave Pack.  The little guy seems to be constantly in the news.  Being in the news is not a bad thing for a COG group if they are doing good, but Dave is up to his dirty tricks again. Despite having the worlds best church, biggest web site, and the coolest apostate members from other splinter groups, he still gets no respect. Even his kids have walked out on him.

The worlds most important man has filed a lawsuit against a small company over their domain name.  The prophet is not happy that the small company has the RT.org address.  It seems that Dave thinks he owns those initials since he has the "Real Truth" magazine.  The problem is that Dave was not smart enough to lock in domain names early on when he started his earth shattering ministry.

In typical COG fashion  a lawsuit was initiated and the mocking began.  Lets be Christians and sue their asses; evil pagans!

The Domains web site has published this account:

UDRP Filed On Two Letter .Org: RT.Org

2013 February 19

by Michael Berkens

A two letter .Org domain name has just been hit with a UDRP.

The domain name is RT.Org

The domain is owned by Alexa Properties, LLC and goes to a Sedo parked page.

The complaint was filed by The Restored Church of God whose site is at RCG.org

The complainant,  The Restored Church of God has a trademark on the term, The Restored Church of God which was filed in 2008.

The complainant The Restored Church of God also filed for two trademarks for the term RCG in 2011.

The domain name has been owned by the current holder since at least January 2012.

There does not appear to be any links to the trademark holder on the domain name, or anything religious oriented.

RT is not close to RCG in any way so we have no idea of what the TM holder is thinking about and the fact that it’s a church, well there is that whole commandment about stealing.

We will be following this case and will let you know once a decision has been reached.

The interesting thing in the comments was the following from a guy outside the COG domain.  He instantly saw through the greed and arrogance of the typical COG leader.

1. 3 February 19

   Grim permalink

   I was thinking Round Table. Not sure why, maybe I’m just in the mood for pizza.
   Doing a quick view of the church’s website, I found that they put out a magazine called, ‘The Real Truth.’ Perhaps that’s what they want the domain for, but attempting to go about getting it in this manner likely goes against any moral or religious dogma of how they would wish one to act when one wants something.
   
2. 2013 February 19

   Grim permalink

   I should add that they already own RealTruth.org, so now it seems like they’re just being greedy.
   http://realtruth.org/home.html

 

HWA Cannot Be Accused of False Prophecies Because He Never Said He Was A Prophet

Did you know that Herbert Armstrong was NOT a false prophet?  The logic behind this is that since HWA never claimed to be "prophet" he therefore cannot be a false prophet. The Preaching
 the Gospel blog is promoting this "truth."

One of the accusations against Mr. Armstrong is that he was a false prophet who made predictions about the future that failed.

But Mr. Armstrong could not have been a false prophet because he was never a prophet at all, and he never claimed to be.

Mr. Armstrong taught, "Don't believe me, believe your Bible, believe God."

Obviously we are supposed to  believe that God did not speak to HWA at anytime.  According to the writer HWA only learned from the Bible.  I guess we should forget about his selfish six month study in a public library when he should have been out supporting his family.  Six months day and night going over scores of books in order to find his true knowledge.  In essence he spend half of a freshman year in a Bible school.  Freshman don't learn very much in 6 months of school and neither did HWA.

God gives examples in the Bible of how He communicated with His prophets. God spoke to Samuel with an audible voice, and the first time this happened, Samuel thought he was hearing the voice of a man calling him (1 Samuel 3:1-19). Christ spoke to Moses face to face (Exodus 33:11). Others experienced dreams or visions in which God spoke to them (Genesis 28:10-15, Ezekiel 1:1-3, 2:1-5, Daniel 10:1-14). Perhaps others received direct revelation from God in other ways.

But these things did not happen to Mr. Armstrong. He didn't learn the truth from God in this way. Instead, he learned the truth from the Bible, just as we should do.

Mr. Armstrong learned the doctrines he taught from the Bible, not by direct revelation from God as the prophets did. He was not a prophet.

Apparently God did not reveal to him after 1,900 years the lost knowledge that the rest of the world had no idea about.  HWA found that in a public library.  Anyone copula have found it there, but God gave HWA  special dispensation to receive certain hidden knowledge.  Only HWA had his mind opened for the knowledge, the regular church member was too stupid to receive it.

God opens our minds, those of us called by God, to be able to understand the Bible. That does not make us prophets. God also opened Mr. Armstrong's mind to understand the Bible. What is the difference between how God opened Mr. Armstrong's mind to understand and how He opens our minds? The difference is degree, not kind. God gave Mr. Armstrong spiritual gifts for the work he was to do. God gave him wisdom and understanding in learning new doctrines in the Bible without a man to guide him. I do not have that gift to the same degree and neither do most of you, I would think. I would not have learned the true doctrines just by studying the Bible alone without the teaching of Mr. Armstrong to help me find the scriptures that apply to each doctrine.

But God does give us enough help to understand the scriptures for each doctrine as we study the Bible so we can prove the doctrines Mr. Armstrong taught.

More circular reasoning:

When Mr. Armstrong speaks of his own opinion, even if he makes a dogmatic statement about doctrine or about future events, he is like Nathan telling David to go ahead and build the temple. But if Mr. Armstrong was a prophet, God would give him direct messages as he gave to Nathan when he told him that David was not to build the temple. Has God ever given Mr. Armstrong such a direct message about doctrine or prophetic events? No. Therefore Mr. Armstrong was never a prophet. Did Mr. Armstrong ever claim that he received a special message from God by a vision, a dream, a voice, or a face-to-face meeting with God? No. Therefore he never claimed to be a prophet.

HWA never made any false prophecies.  He only made mistakes:

Mr. Armstrong sometimes made mistakes when he estimated how soon prophetic events would occur. But he never claimed to receive any message from God setting dates. Otherwise, why would he say he is not a prophet if he thought or claimed that God was giving him messages? Why would he say, don't believe me, believe your Bible?

Mr. Armstrong made mistakes in estimating how soon prophetic events would occur. He was wrong in many cases when he said in his writings that something would happen "in ten to fifteen years" or something like that. He made other mistakes too. As he has pointed out, he learned the doctrines of the Church little-by-little over a long period of time, and he had to correct his mistakes.

But you could always tell in reading his literature what he was teaching from the Bible and what was his human opinion and estimate. If you followed the FIRST PRINCIPLE of his teaching, don't believe me, believe the Bible, you would not be confused and could not be deceived.

Using this reasoning it is easy to gloss over the humongous errors in the US&BC booklet from the 1960's:

When Mr. Armstrong taught, he gave his reasons, mostly from the scriptures, and if he said something that he did not prove from the Bible, then it is understood that it was his opinion, which could be mistaken. You could tell in his writings what was opinion and what was doctrine proved from scripture.

For example, I remember the front pages of Mr. Armstrong's book, The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy, saying something like this, "...events sure to happen in the next 10 to 15 years..." or something similar. I don't remember the exact number of years, but the copyright of the book was in the 1960s I think, or some date that made the statement turn out not to be true.

But those statements were not backed up with scripture in the rest of the book. That is how I knew they were Mr. Armstrong's opinion.

 I remember that some of the dates the literature either stated or implied were wrong. But Mr. Armstrong never said that God gave him any message about exact dates. The literature proved the doctrines from the Bible. Anything not backed up by scripture was understood to be opinion. That is the way I understood it. So when I saw the front of the United States in prophecy book say these events were sure to happen in a certain number of years, all I had to do was read the book, look up all the scriptures, and remember that Mr. Armstrong said, don't believe me, believe the Bible. When I did that, I saw that no scripture set any exact date, nor did Mr. Armstrong say in the book that any scripture set any exact dates. From that, it was easy to see that the statement in the front of the book about x number of years was just opinion.

If you really believe that HWA made mistakes you should remember we are not to judge, but if you still insist, then please cut him some slack!  Just count it all an honest mistake!

Before we judge Mr. Armstrong for his errors, we should remind ourselves what Christ said about judging. "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you" (Matthew 7:1-2). None of us would like to be called a false teacher for the mistakes we make in the things we say or teach. And we all make mistakes.

If you see that Mr. Armstrong made a mistake, be merciful, as you want God to be merciful to you. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Cut him some slack, as they say. Just count it as an honest mistake that he made, and believe what the Bible really says.

  So there you have it.  Armstrongism was an honest mistake!  Get over it!